


illuminate and captivate

by kimaracretak



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Hair Braiding, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-24 20:49:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17711327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: The tug on her hair is softer, and she can feel the air shift as the Traveler's invisible fingers start a braid. "I help exactly as much as you need me to," he says, and she frowns a little at that, remembering the last time he hadn't helped."But couldn't you say that, like, in the middle of things? Like, 'Oh, Jester, you're so great, you've totally got this fight, I'll be over here with, like, pom-poms from all the heads your lollipop is knocking off' or something?"[ Jester has some questions about death and dreams. The Traveler might not have answers, but he hasplans. ]





	illuminate and captivate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blithers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/gifts).



The first time Jester dreams of the Traveler after they steal the boat, she's walking through a big long corridor underneath the ocean. The Traveler is the seaweed on the walls. She knows it's him because the seaweed is in little clumps like hands, and all the hands have six big long fingers that reach out and tickle her scalp right at the edges of her horns, and the Traveler's favourite number is six.

She skips a little at that thought, because she knows him so well, and that's probably why she's getting one of his special dreams tonight. The ones where they get to work on all their super secret plans, the ones she can't tell her friends about yet because they're not _ready_.

Not much happens in that first dream. He bites her earlobe and tells her it's harder to talk to her so far into the ocean, and she pokes him between the eyes hard enough that her claw leaves a little divot and tells him he's being a worse baby about the water than even Nott was.

That makes him go very quiet, quieter than she thinks she's ever seen him, and for a moment right and the end of the dream she worries she went a little bit too far. But when Jester wakes up, her hair's all tied in knots around the rope of her hammock and there's an shiny new extra bead on the chain that holds her holy symbol around her waist, so she knows he's not really mad.

But she does wonder, a little bit, why someone as powerful as the Traveler doesn't like the water. He doesn't even have a body! Shouldn't that make swimming easier?

Jester fills one page with every shade of blue she has, and a little bit of purple too because the sea is _trouble_ , and then she draws little dots of Traveler-mist swimming in the sea.

The dots are _definitely_ in the shape of a dick; she hopes they'll make him laugh.

*

Jester has _plans_ for Darktow. Specifically she has plans for pamphlets - because pirates play tricks, so _obviously_ she'll find some new friends who want to come play with her and the Traveler - and altars - okay so you don't _need_ altars to be devoted to the Traveler, especially when you're his Best cleric, but they're always fun to make, especially when you can sneak them into the corners of other gods' temples. And she wants to run. There's only so many places you can run on a ship, before Fjord tells you to get down from the sails before you hurt yourself or Avantika yells at you to stop making such a racket.

Stupid Avantika and her stupid plans, that Jester is trying to maybe be a little nicer about because they might end up helping Fjord, but if they do it'll be maybe by accident and probably because of _her_ , and not really at all about Avantika.

But then things go badly, and then Avatika gets dead, and ... well, Jester supposes this counts as running, in some sense. It's just not the fun kind.

Jester slinks back to the cabin she's claimed as hers, and pulls out her sketchbook. It's starting to smell a little bit like salt, and there's a stain in the corner where the wall leaked a little bit in the night. She adds eyes and a body to make it a snake demon, but that's too close to real and not much fun, even when she thinks about adding a mini-Beau punching it or a mini-Fjord swallowing it just like he swallowed the rock and the sword.

She sighs and flips over to a new page, letting her hand do what it wants. She's not really surprised when a few quick strokes melt into the sharp lines of Avantika's face, her ears sweeping up to the top of the page and her hair all furious like the waves and her chin tilted up and -

"No," Jester snaps, and scribbles big thick Xs over Avantika's eyes. She was dead now. Dead-dead like Molly, dead-dead at the bottom of the ocean. But even as she marks out Avantika's eyes, part of her can't stop thinking about Avantika's smile, worrying over the picture like a particularly hard bit of candy, and after that, the questions come as instinctively and rapidly as Avantika's face had.

"Is she really dead? Did Uk'otoa visit her dreams like you visited mine? Could I visit her dreams? Can you only do it when someone's alive or could you go back after they're dead, you know, like you can make them talk and maybe even move a little bit? If you start dreaming again does that mean you stop being dead?"

Suddenly very tired, Jester gets up and flings herself facedown into the hammock, tail swishing idly back and forth with the hammock's swing. No spoken answer is immediately forthcoming, but just as the hammock sways to a stop, something pulls sharply at her tail.

"Ow," she complains into the pillow of her forearms. "'S mean. I had a long day and you only helped a little bit."

The tug on her hair is softer, and she can feel the air shift as the Traveler's invisible fingers start a braid. "I help exactly as much as you need me to," he says, and she frowns a little at that, remembering the last time he hadn't helped.

"But couldn't you say that, like, in the middle of things? Like, 'Oh, Jester, you're so great, you've totally got this fight, I'll be over here with, like, pom-poms from all the heads your lollipop is knocking off' or something?"

That does make him laugh, and a little shivery thrill runs through Jester's body, like it always does when he laughs at one of her jokes. It feels different now, now that all of her friends are so insistent that he's a god, in addition to just being her best friend. She makes a god laugh!

She wants to turn over and jump up on him with the joy of it, but she doesn't want to mess up her hair, and besides, he probably doesn't even have a body today anyway. Not a visible one, at least. Maybe he's just the big rainbow coat.

Jester giggles a bit at that, the image of a big rainbow coat with six fingers braiding her hair, and it makes the past few days feel a little bit better. Gods that are coats are way cooler than gods who are snakes, anyway. More proof that Avantika was just silly.

As if sensing that her thoughts have drifted, the Traveler ties off her braid, and Jester flips over to her back, carefully not looking just yet. She likes the idea of him being a coat, and is sure if she looks it'll be spoiled.

"To answer your question," he says slowly. "She is dead, for now. Death ... sometimes it's quite a long while before it really takes, for a person. Sometimes the in-between is very big. Avantika's one of those. And," he continues, before she's done more than open her mouth to protest, "so are you, little spark."

Jester curls her fingers around the hammock ropes and her sketchbook. Her tail is getting cold, drooping on the floor. "What does that mean?" she asks, and she's annoyed by how very small her voice is.

"It means," he says, and leans down to press his lips to her forehead, warm and lingering. "It means that the two of us get to have a lot of fun there."

His body settles over hers like a blanket, and she smiles.


End file.
